by K. A. Linde
She was clearly Patrick’s type. Crazy. He loved them crazy.
Austin elbowed Patrick. “Hear that, man? She likes brothers.”
Patrick shrugged. “Yeah, whatever. I’m down.”
He could say that since he didn’t have a brother.
Mindi giggled and topped off his drink. “You boys are silly.”
Patrick grinned at her. “That, we are.”
“Hey, did you see your girl was here?” Austin asked, clapping me on the back.
“My…girl?” I asked in confusion and also borderline panic. The last time one of my brothers had said something like that, Miranda had flown in from Tampa to corner me.
“Yeah, dude. Check it out,” Austin said. He pointed to a table across the room from us.
And there was Heidi. On her date. With some douche bag.
My jealousy, which had subdued in the time that I allowed myself to be distracted, flared up again like an inferno. One second, I had been laughing about Patrick’s new crazy girl, and the next, I wanted to walk over there and interrupt Heidi’s date.
Who the fuck was he anyway? I’d never seen him before. Not that I’d lived in Lubbock for a while.
“Wait, what am I missing?” Patrick asked. “Who is Landon’s girl? God, help us all, not Miranda.”
“Nah, dude. Heidi Martin,” Austin said, filling him in.
I didn’t have it in me to deny it. I wanted Heidi. The month apart after that kiss and all the realizations about Miranda had solidified it. I’d thought I’d come back and we’d pick up where we left off. I hadn’t thought she’d already be seeing someone else. “Who is she with?”
Both guys shrugged. Neither of them knew, which meant I was going to need to find out.
“So…you and Heidi?” Patrick asked in surprise. “Didn’t you date her best friend?”
“Isn’t her best friend dating my brother?” I demanded.
Why did Emery always have to be a sticking point? We hadn’t dated in more than ten years. Plus, it wasn’t as if she or Jensen had talked to me before they started dating.
“Point,” Patrick agreed.
“Seriously, I don’t get you two,” Austin said. “How can you let her go on a date with someone else? Is this because of you and Miranda?”
“No,” I ground out.
“Well, are you going to go stop her? Because I figured that, if you two were fucking, you wouldn’t let her date someone else.”
“Whoa! Nice, man!” Patrick said, holding his hand up for me to give him a high five. “Moving on from that bitch as fast as possible I see.”
“We’re not fucking,” I corrected them.
“Well, except for that one time,” Austin said with raised eyebrows.
“That is not what happened, dude,” I told him in frustration.
I’d been so bogged down in dealing with Miranda that I hadn’t even told Austin that Heidi and I hadn’t been together. And he still clearly thought that we had.
“Suuurrre,” Austin said, dragging out the word.
“Well, this will be fun,” Patrick said.
He had a shit-eating grin on his face, and I was sure that only meant trouble.
“Hey, Mindi.”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Can you send a drink to that table?” he asked, pointing out Heidi.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You’re sending a drink to another girl?” Mindi pouted, sticking out her bottom lip.
“It’s from Landon,” he told her.
“Do not do that,” I groaned. “That would look really bad.”
“Ah, have some fun!” Patrick said. “She looks miserable on her date anyway. She’ll appreciate it.”
“Sure, honey. What should I send?” she asked.
Patrick looked to me.
I shook my head. “No fucking way.”
“A nice red wine will do,” Patrick said when I refused to answer.
Austin was laughing next to him. “Lighten up, Landon. Heidi is going to appreciate it. Look at how over this date she is.”
I’d been trying not to look, to tell the truth. Seeing her on a date with someone else made me want to be violent. But I did what Austin had said. Heidi did look uncomfortable. She was leaning away from the guy and had her arms crossed over her chest while he was talking. The beautiful smile that I knew and loved was gone from her face. But she seemed to be trying for a half-assed quirk of her mouth. He was clearly buying it. I didn’t want to feel satisfaction from the fact that she wasn’t enjoying her date, but a small part of me did.
I watched as the waiter returned to her table with the glass of wine that Patrick had ordered for her. And I meant to look away when she received it in shock, obviously insisting that she hadn’t ordered it. Then, the waiter pointed over to the bar, and Heidi’s eyes fell on me.
Her frown deepened, and she looked like she was about to get out of her seat and throw the glass of wine in my face. So, I smiled brightly and waved.
Her date turned around and looked at us over his shoulder. I wasn’t sure what I read in his expression. Mostly surprise. Then, he was talking to Heidi. She pushed the glass of wine away from her untouched.
Fuck.
“You’re such a dick,” I said to Patrick
“We’re helping you. Aren’t we, Austin?” Patrick asked, nudging him.
“Meddling is a fun pastime.”
“I’ll remind you of that the next time I meddle in your business.”
Heidi and her date, it seemed, had come to the end of their meal. I could see the check on their table. They stood and were walking toward the exit. Was she really going to leave without drinking that full glass of wine?
“Hey, Heidi!” Patrick said, waving at her and her date as they passed us.
Heidi stopped in her tracks and sighed. She seemed to be bracing herself for impact.
“Hey, Patrick,” she said as she faced us. “Austin. Landon.”
“Heidi,” Austin said with a knowing look.
I nodded my head at her, but she wouldn’t even look in my direction.
“Hey, y’all. I’m Nick,” her date said when it was clear that she wasn’t about to make an introduction.
“Hey, Nick,” Patrick said.
We each shook hands with the guy. I lingered longer than the others and squeezed a little too tight. I couldn’t help myself. I instantly disliked this guy. It wouldn’t have mattered if he were the nicest person on the planet.
“Austin and Landon,” Nick said with a thoughtful expression. “Wright brothers?”
Austin nodded his head. “Yep.”
“So, you all work for Wright Construction, too?” Nick asked.
Heidi jumped in right away. “Yep. Landon is my boss.” She wielded the word like a weapon.
“Oh,” Nick said, his shoulders relaxing.
It was as if that word, boss, carried weight and told him I wasn’t a threat.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
“You aren’t going to drink your wine?” Patrick prompted.
I nearly groaned aloud. Why had I ever let Austin tell Patrick about what he thought had happened that night with Heidi?
Heidi gritted her teeth. “We were already finished, and I’m not feeling that well. So, I was going to forgo it. But…thanks.”
Her eyes briefly met mine, and they said anything but thank you. The fire in them said, What the hell are you doing?, and, Fuck off.
“Well, you know what would make you feel better?” Patrick said.
“A Xanax, ice cream, and some sleep?” she muttered under her breath.
I had to fight from smiling at her words.
“Pool,” Patrick said.
Nick furrowed his brow. “How would a swimming pool improve her well-being?”
I nearly face-planted into the bar at those words. So, this wasn’t a guy she had been dating a while. This wasn’t real competition. He didn’t even know that she played pool, which showed how very temporary
the entire situation was. Not to mention, the faking-sick bit.
Maybe I shouldn’t walk away from this. Maybe Patrick had a point. I could play into this and step up my game. I could get rid of good ole Nick in one night. Then, Heidi and I could finally have that talk. I’d be back on track.
“Shooting pool,” I corrected him. “If you knew Heidi as well as I do, you’d know it was one of her favorite things to do.”
Heidi nearly choked on those words. “That’s not exactly accurate. I would say one of my favorite things to do is kicking your ass in pool.”
I laughed. “We’ll see if you can do that.”
“I can’t even count the number of times I’ve done that.”
“Wait, I thought you said that this was your boss,” Nick said in confusion.
“I…well…he is,” Heidi said, backpedaling.
“Landon and Heidi have been friends for years, dude,” Patrick said. “He’s been her boss for a week. She can give him a pass for the night and play pool. You know where Flips is?”
Nick stammered, “I…yeah, I do.”
“What he’s trying to say is,” Austin cut in, “we’re going to head to Flips to play some pool if you’d like to join us.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Heidi said.
“I mean, these are your friends, right?” Nick asked. “I don’t mind going with you if you’re feeling up to it.”
“I don’t—”
“Come on, Heidi,” I pressed. “It’s only one game. Unless you’re afraid I’ll beat you.”
“The only time you’ve ever won is when I let you to protect your precious ego.”
I shrugged. “You can prove that tonight.”
She imploringly looked at Nick, but he seemed not to notice.
“I’m up for it! I didn’t even know you liked to play pool. I would love to see how good you are.”
“Right,” she whispered.
“Great! Then, it’s settled,” Austin said. “We’ll see you there in twenty minutes. We just have to close out.”
Heidi glared at me, as if this were all my fault. I was pretty sure she was going to back out and have her new date take her home. Except that I had challenged her to a game, and she was too competitive to let the challenge stand.
I didn’t care if I lost horribly to her. I wanted the chance to fight for more than the game.
Thirteen
Heidi
“It was nice to meet some of your friends other than Julia,” Nick said with his ever-present smile on his face as we sat outside of Flips. “I really need to meet your roommate now though. Emery sounds nice.”
I fought to keep a blank look on my face.
This was a disaster.
A disaster!
“Yeah, we should invite her, too, and then we’d have the whole gang together,” I muttered sarcastically.
“If you want to invite her, I don’t mind. This has been the best date yet.”
I sadly smiled at him. Emery was right. There was no spark here. He hadn’t even noticed the tension between me and Landon. Even after Landon had sent that drink.
And oh my God! How dare he send me that drink while I was on a date with someone else! What the hell had he been thinking?
“I think Emery is in with her boyfriend tonight,” I told him, sinking low in the passenger seat.
“Isn’t she dating a Wright?”
“Yes, Jensen. He’s the oldest.”
“So interesting. I don’t know much about their family, just that they’re, like, Lubbock royalty. Trevor is more into all that stuff than I am.”
“Lubbock royalty.” I guffawed. “They’re just people who happen to have money. I wouldn’t put them on a pedestal.”
That was rich, coming from me. I’d been putting them on a pedestal my whole life. But it had been easy to do that when I grew up with nothing. My father’s bar wasn’t exactly a lucrative business deal. The only money he had ever raked in had been entirely illegal…and we had all paid dearly for it. I was from the wrong side of the tracks, looking up at the mansions, wondering what it was like to live like that. I couldn’t help it. Even now that I had money, I had a certain level of fascination with the rich and famous.
Of course, with his golf career, Landon fit that mold better than all of them, and I never really felt that way about him. Probably because I had known him before his career took off.
“You ready to go in?”
I sighed. I was not ready to go in.
I had no idea why I had even agreed to this. Partly because I was competitive by nature and partly because…I wanted to see Landon. After that elevator ride, my mind had been going crazy. I’d thought the date would make me forget about him, but of course, my luck, we’d run into him on the date. Now, I was willingly going to hang out with him and the guy I was dating.
Only one explanation.
I was a masochist.
Nick was getting out of the car before I could even think about changing my mind.
I’m doing this. I’m really doing this.
I let me heels click onto the pavement and straightened out my pink-and-black dress.
Man, I was stalling.
Nick was smiling at me from the front of his car, and I hesitantly walked up to him.
“You all right?”
“Yeah,” I lied.
When we entered Flips, it was like coming home.
Having grown up in a bar, I always felt most comfortable inside its four walls. It didn’t matter that it frequently smelled of liquor, vomit, and stale cigarettes. It didn’t matter that the hardwood floor was stained from years of disuse. It didn’t matter that it was dimly lit, making it hard to see all the way to the back of the room, or that it was filled with a wide array of people from all walks of life. This felt right.
And, damn, I needed a drink.
Peter was working. Honestly, I wasn’t sure when he wasn’t working. He saw me coming and had a tequila shot waiting. He slapped the saltshaker in front of me.
“You look like you need this,” he said.
Oh, ye of few words.
“Hey, Peter. Nice to see you. This is my…this is Nick,” I said, stumbling over the word date.
“Hey, man,” Nick said, offering his hand.
Peter kind of stared at it like the guy was out of his mind. “What’ll you have?”
“Oh, I’ll take a Bud Light.” Nick let his hand drop back to his side.
Peter gave me a look that said, Bud Light? Really?
So, he didn’t have the greatest taste in beer. Who am I to judge? Except…I always judged people on what they drank. You could tell a lot about a person based on what kind of drink they ordered at a bar. It was like seeing someone reading a book in the park. You were either instant friends or instant enemies.
I knocked back the shot of tequila even though I needed to keep my wits about me. But one shot would do just fine.
“We’re hitting the tables,” I told Peter. Then, I nodded for Nick to follow me with his Bud Light.
I had already racked the balls on the table when Landon, Austin, and Patrick breezed into Flips like they owned the place. Not completely out of the realm of possibility for the Wrights. Though probably a bad investment, considering what a mess the whole family was.
Austin procured an entire bottle of whiskey off the shelf and a tray of glasses. It must have cost at least double what it would cost in a store, but Austin didn’t seem to care. Austin set the tray down, and Patrick poured whiskey into each of the glasses.
I shook my head. “You’re a mess, Austin.”
He winked at me. “Come now, Martin. This isn’t the worst you’ve seen me.”
“Not the best either.”
Patrick grinned. “This is definitely his best.”
Landon took a drink when it was offered to him, but otherwise, his eyes were set solely on me. I hadn’t even looked at him yet. Still, I could feel his gaze upon me like a caress.
I bit my lip and finally let my eyes
drift to his. Suddenly, the room was a furnace. As if the floor was coated in gasoline, and that look had set the place on fire. I hated that he was capable of making me feel that. Of dragging me toward him with one look. Yet I was incapable of pulling away from it.
“You ready to play?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.
“Um,” I murmured, “play?”
“Pool.” He tossed a pool stick in my direction, and I caught it in one hand. He whispered as he passed me, “Unless you have something else in mind.”
I stammered on my words as I felt his hand trail along the small of my back. My eyes hurried to Nick, but he was preoccupied with Austin and Patrick. I felt horrible that this was happening. This was such a bad idea, yet it was Landon. I wanted him to fight for me…even if it was unfair.
“Stop it,” I hissed, regaining control of my body.
He arched an eyebrow and quirked a smile at me. “Your break.”
I took out my frustration on the pool balls and grabbed everyone’s attention. I landed three balls in pockets on the break—two solids and stripe—and smiled. “A hundred bucks says I beat you this game.”
Landon pulled out his wallet and laid five twenties on the table without a second thought. “Fine by me.”
Patrick scooped up the money and tossed it down on the tray. “Now, we have a game!”
I felt triumphant already. Landon had only beaten me a handful of times, and it was usually when I was belligerently drunk or distracted. Neither of which I was going to be tonight.
“I presume your solids?” Landon asked.
“You know it,” I told him as I preceded to I pocketed three more balls before I missed one, leaving the table open for Landon.
“Wow, you are really good!” Nick said, sidling up next to me. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that you could play pool like this?”
“Just a fun party trick,” I lied.
“Well, I think it’s pretty amazing. I’m shit at pool. I’ve only played once in my life.”
“Uh-huh,” I said as Landon pocketed a ball. “Sorry kind of concentrating on the game.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Go ahead,” Nick said. He stepped back and started chatting with Patrick again.